The Ringer: a Bike Bell for Grown-ups

posted by Trucker - August 9, 2013 - 8am EST

Last month we reported on Spurcycle‘s innovative Griprings, now they’re kickstarting again with the Ringer, a high quality aluminum, stainless steel, and brass bell. While my first reaction is to scoff at a $35 bell, I do know a lot of riders who race mountain bikes or ride busy trails who have kiddie bells mounted to their $200 handlebars, so Spurcyclecould be on to something here. Why strap a bulky, cheap piece of plastic to a machine whose every other bolt and component is made of specialized, high end material? Ring the bell for more pics and info.

For ten bucks more, the ringer also comes in black to match your mountain bike on all those stealthy passes. Spurcycle claims it won’t offer that annoying rattle on high speed rocky sections either.

. . . or match your roadie so it’s not so obvious you have a bell on your bike while rolling through urban areas. As you can see, the ringer is relatively small (30mmx20.5mm), weighs 42g, fits almost any bar, and is made in the U.S.A.

And what’s more hipster on your commuter than a raw steel bell that you probably haven’t even heard of?

Comments

Loki - 08/09/13 - 9:07am

Wow, the bastard child of an Incredible (Mirrycle.com) and a Hammer bell (rivbike.com), no start up cash needed, a couple of patents to circumvent and an instant online market. And it’s $20 more expensive. Good looking bell, well finished, just hate the context.

Jak0zilla - 08/09/13 - 9:10am

Nice, but not $35 worth of nice.

iperov - 08/09/13 - 9:39am

people dont care when hear this type of bell

Limba - 08/09/13 - 10:10am

I like the way it looks but $35 is really expensive for a bell and in my experience bells don’t work. I just yell “heads up” to get people’s attention.

nanci djreaux - 08/09/13 - 10:58am

i just got a dimension beehive bell. it was $8 and that sucker is LOUD.

Champs - 08/09/13 - 11:13am

Gotta give this one some style points over the beehive bell, or any of the other ugly kiddie toys. They should do one in brass. I’ve never heard steel make such a beautiful tone.

I’ve been using a bell for 15 yrs. Love this little beauty. Maybe not $35 of love….

Jeff - 08/09/13 - 11:57am

Well if you want to support USA made product that has no economies of scale yet then $35 seems reasonable. I am sure they could make it in China and sell for $15 if they could order 20,000 of them. For me I do not need a bell but if I did I would not mind spending $35 on this one. Looks well thought out and engineered.

AlanM - 08/09/13 - 12:33pm

^What Jeff said.

Dave - 08/09/13 - 12:43pm

I love the Incredibell for the small size and discreet design, but the plastic hammer gets ripped off in tumbles easily. I’m on my third bell in a year (maybe I crash too much?). I’d gladly pay a few more bucks for a quality product that will last longer.

chasejj - 08/09/13 - 12:44pm

Neat looking bell……but for $35?

I need a more convenient bell trigger in the clamp of my brakes. I find the triggers too hard to reach over to access when all my controls are positioned the way I like them. Maybe something electronic with selectable ringtones!! Now that is innovation.

This is more hipster /townie nonsense to strap onto your bamboo framed POS with no brakes.

Jack - 08/09/13 - 1:33pm

Eh, you didn’t actually mention if this thing is LOUD enough to work well?

Pretty though.

Psi Squared - 08/09/13 - 3:16pm

Interestingly enough, the video shows a Bell on a Carl Strong bike, something decidedly not hipster/townie nonsense. All the bikes in the video have brakes, and none of them are bamboo.

Now that the previous assumptions have been shot down, the bell looks like a quality piece of kit. I know that such things don’t rank with the bike snobs and career naysayers, but some people might actually value the quality of the bell and the work that goes into it.

satisFACTORYrider - 08/09/13 - 3:22pm

i’ve always used a police whistle on the road. it literally has been the only thing that has saved my butt in traffic. cheap and can pierce thru any car window. people are conditioned differently to a whistle. bell=xcuse me. whistle=stop now

joe - 08/09/13 - 3:25pm

35 dollars isnt even that much. people pay way more than that for waterbottle cages all day.

chasejj - 08/09/13 - 3:52pm

PSI- We’ll see how they sell in the world of bicycle bells. I stand by my prejudiced and snarky response above.
First of all I know of zero roadies with a bell. Zero.
Serious MTBers? Me and my kids and maybe 10% of the others I see on trails.
Family’s riding on bike paths…..lots maybe 70%.
Do you really think family folks outfitting their kids 20″ bike are spending $35 for a bell? Who besides the most self entitled, ridiculous among the hoard would buy one?
I rest my case.

MikeB - 08/09/13 - 4:15pm

This is exactly the bell I been looking for. $35 isn’t much for something nice. I see and hear them on my local trails and they work. I just backed them for 2. Since this post went live on bikerumor, their pledge dollars went up over $10,000. I’m MTBer and a Roadie.

I just say ‘ding ding’. It’s free, and you can easily vary your level of audible indignation.

Sammy T - 08/09/13 - 9:06pm

Incredibell for life! On all my bikes. $10 is all you need to improve your trail karma!

JimmyZ - 08/09/13 - 11:31pm

is it loud enough to be heard through the shooting range approved headphones most trail blockers wear? For $35 an overpowered radio transmitter could be made that would blast their ears with an unignorable “ON YOUR LEFT”, but the FCC doesn’t like that, for some stupid reason.

Eric.NM - 08/09/13 - 11:59pm

1. Bells diffuse potential hiker-biker conflicts better than surprising either without a bell or by startling them w/ your voice out of the blue. Much less startling on multi-use trails in my experience. (I always follow a bell ringing with a shout of of “ice cream man!”, and I never fail to get even the grumpiest hiker to smile…)

2. For MTB racing, a bell is a far less douche-y way of asking to pass than barking, “On your left!!!”‘

3. @chasejj: you couldn’t be more wrong; I’d rather buy ONE well made $35 bell for the above reasons than buying the same Incredibel three times. (No bamboo, no skinny jeans, and no fixies in my house.)

EricNM- The 5 guys on here who bought one or two…bravo. Proving my point
I will be proven correct but it will take a year or so to run through the very small market and kickstarter money before the producer runs out of desire and money.
BikeRumor will not run a story on the failure of the $35 bar bell so no one will ever know after it fades away like tons of other boutique products designed for the same exact crowd.
I am not anti anything necessarily(well except townies and bamboo bikes), but have been working in and around the industry for 35 years and have seen pretty much everything.

I still say that there is a better bell design out there, this is just not IT.
This is just the same old bell design positioned to take money from the suckers by trying to drive it upmarket.

Psi Squared - 08/10/13 - 12:10pm

Does a person have to be a snob to work in the bike industry? It seems so from statements made.

K11 - 08/10/13 - 1:46pm

it’s amazing the amount of comments over a bell. like the usa made part.

chasejj - 08/10/13 - 5:11pm

PSI- I think you may have it backward. A snob sort oif fits the traget demo of this bell.
My Incrdibell works acceptably and in almost every respect is the exact same thing.
I can ourfit my whole familyof 4 for the price of this one bell.

So who exactly is the snob?

Ditto - 08/11/13 - 5:28pm

It is a modified clothes-pin on an O-clamp with a 1 1/2″ pipe-cap screwed to it.

I had to laugh when the author mentions that he doesn’t know anyone with a bell on their bike. Apparently, he/she doesn’t know any singlespeeders or Euro riders. In both cases, bells are en force… sadly we can’t get the Incredibell and/or probably this lovely little thing either in Germany. The options her suck by the way. Looking forward to figuring out how to get one of these.

1tec1 - 08/13/13 - 2:56am

All you haters sound like pathetic, whining children. So you don’t want a bell. Great, then screw off and complain about something that actually sucks in a forum where people give a rats ass.

Kudos to Spurcycle‘s. It looks like a awesome bell. I break a couple per year because they’re usually mounted to a plastic clasp and I ride/crash a lot. If its actually tough, I’ll for sure buy two or three for a few of my bikes.

1tec1 - 08/13/13 - 3:00am

The Incredibells are the ones I keep breaking. Although they do have a really nice tone to them.

Dante - 08/17/13 - 8:58pm

People that think this bell is expensive should take a look at their kickstarter page. Not only was this funded in 24 hours but they are $105k over their goal as I write this. The campaign still has 34 days to go…………I guess 2216 backers are all snobs and hipsters. I guess I’m one too, oh well.

People talk about wanting made in America items but then balk at price when they see it. You can’t have both.

thestrongman - 08/20/13 - 11:37am

wow… usually it takes a post about 650 vs. 29 to elicit this kind of nastyness!

I have incredibells on all my bikes, but I have broken a few, and i’m always on the lookout for cool new kit.

35 bucks is not the end of the world as some seem to think – if you can’t pay the fare, stay off the bus and don’t spoil the ride for the rest of us. It’s just a bell, after all.

Rick - 10/31/14 - 9:14pm

$35 bucks for such of beautiful piece of craftsmanship and functional at that, I would this bell
ART THAT WORKS I have been a journeyman machinist for 44 years and have the machinery and knowledge to make one but not for $35 bucks.
What more do you want, it is made in the good old USA.

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